


Visitation

by Kestrel337



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Not Beta Read, Not Britpicked, OT3, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Silver Fox Saturday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:09:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrel337/pseuds/Kestrel337
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg introduces his partners to the man who helped him become a copper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visitation

**Author's Note:**

> -Characters not mine. No disrespect intended, no money made.

A simple stone marker, once polished to a reflective gleam, now dulled by the years of weather and London’s air. A name, two dates, but no words of hope or fond remembrance. What words could have summed up this life? 

“I suppose he’d laugh, me bringing flowers.” Greg shrugged and tucked the bright bundle into the plastic cone. 

John laid a calming hand on Greg’s back. “We don’t have to do this, love. Would you rather be alone?” 

“No, no. No. I’m just, well.” Greg cleared his throat, looked at the stone. “I’m never quite sure what to say.”

“Just speak from your heart.” John offered, then grimaced at the cliche. 

They stood in silence for a moment, then Greg huffed out a breath, took John’s and Sherlock’s hands in his, and began to speak.

“So. Well.” He nodded toward the marker. “This is Alfie. He’s the one who convinced me to be a copper.” Greg shuffled his feet a little bit. “I’m not a genius like some of us, or smart and dedicated like others.” He squeezed the hands he held in turn. “I didn’t do great in school, mostly just well enough to get by. Wasn’t ever sure, really, what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go, other than ‘something else, someplace else, as soon as possible’. Figured I had the guts, the muscles, knew how to balance a checkbook, I’d get by. God, I was stupid.” He shook his greying head.

“Not so stupid. As life-plans go, there are worse.” Sherlock met Greg’s eyes, rolled his free hand slightly in acknowledgement of his own less-than-healthy youthful choices.

Greg smiled, nodded, and continued. “Well. Here I was in London. Working in a little all-night place, got held up. Cops came around, I gave them a description of the guy. Guess I did alright, because the officer who interviewed me asked if I’d ever thought about being a cop.” 

“Alfred Wides.” John read the name from the stone.

“Yeah. Alfie. Wish I could say I’d signed up right then, but no. Seemed like a fools game, ya’ know? Chasing baddies wouldn’t be awful, but the worst part of the shop job was the bleeding paperwork, and I figured there’d be even more of it. And procedure, and rules.” 

“Paperwork.” Sherlock was scornful. “Paperwork and procedure; you seem fond enough of both now.”

“Nope. Still hate it sometimes, but it’s necessary.”

John pulled the conversation back on track. “What changed your mind?”

“Alfie came back a couple weeks later. Said they’d caught the guy, mostly because of my description. Said he’d done a couple other robberies, someone got pretty badly hurt in one of them, but nobody’d kept their heads enough to give the cops anything to go on. Felt good, knowing I’d had a hand in bringing him down. And he said, Alfie did, that someone who could keep their head in a crisis was needed on the force far more than they were needed at an all-night sannie shop.” Wonder colored his voice. “I don’t know why he did that. I wasn’t some homeless kid, not a charity case who needed a hand up. Wasn’t someone with incredible gifts wasting away.” Sherlock flinched, but Greg didn’t notice. “I was just another nobody kid, getting by okay, woulda been fine any which way. But he came back, and I figured it meant something that he did, that he said those things. So I joined up. He was there when I finished training, stood me a pint when I made DS.”

“You never worked together?” John’s voice was quiet. 

“Nah, he was older, different part of the force. Retired right after I got married. He never approved of Carla, you know. Thought she was too ordinary. Always said I needed someone with more caring and more crazy, so we’d balance each other.” He let go their hands, slung his arms around them. “Which brings me to why I wanted to come here today. Alfie, this is Sherlock. He’s my crazy partner, the one who keeps me from getting stodgy and boring. You’d have liked him, if you didn’t kill him before you got to really know him.” 

Sherlock was uncharacteristically silent. 

“And this one here, this is John. He’s my caring partner. He’s a bit crazy too, he has to be to put up with the pair of us, but...well, he keeps me true. Knows when to make me talk, even if it’s more yelling and sobbing than talking.” 

John nodded at the stone. 

“Anyway. I know it’s a bit weird, me being with two partners and them being blokes. I don’t know if you ever knew that about me. Probably you did, and I bet you wouldn’t have cared any road. But they make me better. At the job, at solving things, at talking to people, at everything. We’re moving in together today, which is about as official as it’s ever going to be. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and it was you making me a copper that put me in the way of meeting them. I wanted to thank you for that, and they wanted to come along. So, yeah, I...guess that’s all I have to say. Thanks. For everything.”

John reached out and patted the headstone. “I wish I’d had a chance to know you, Alfred Wides. Thanks for helping our Greg. He’s an amazing man, and a really good cop.”

Sherlock merely nodded to the stone and squeezed Greg’s shoulder, the narrowing of his eyes and miniscule jut to his jaw the only clues to what he was feeling. Together, the three men turned and walked away from the headstone. None of them mentioned the slight warmth they felt, as if an unseen hand had pressed and patted approvingly at their shoulders. But each of them carried that sense of blessing with them as they walked through life, together.


End file.
